


The Grand Adventures of Old Norse Gods

by alpha_hydra



Category: The Avengers (2012), The Avengers - All Fandoms
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-25
Updated: 2012-03-25
Packaged: 2017-11-02 12:18:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/368907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alpha_hydra/pseuds/alpha_hydra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or where Steve finds a kitten and things just go downhill from there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Grand Adventures of Old Norse Gods

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is birthday fic, written for [chickienine](chickienine.livejournal.com), because we decided that there wasn't enough Avengers Kitten!fic in the world. There's no specific universe I had in mind for this; I mean, I used the movies tag because it was the first one that popped up, and I even added the "all fandoms" one because it could literally be whatever the fuck you want. Hell, it might even be a non-superhero au. Look, idek, okay? JUST TAKE THE ESTABLISHED RELATIONSHIP TONY/STEVE AND ADD KITTIES.
> 
> Happy birthday, chickienine!!!! You have all my love.
> 
> Also, re: rating; for Tony's potty mouth. Also also, fluffy. So sweet you might get diabetes.
> 
> One last thing: Unbetaed because it is fucking 3 am, i has no beta and birthday fic. All mistakes are totally my own.

Steve finds it one day while he’s out for his morning run, before the sun properly rises. He hears it really before he sees it; only hears anything at all because his music player ran out of battery about five minutes beforehand. Steve slows to a halt outside a dank-looking alleyway, listens to a chorus of tiny, pathetic mewling sounds before he cautiously steps behind a bundle of garbage cans. When he lifts up a damp section of newspaper, he finds a tiny bundle of black fur, shivering from the early morning chill. 

“Hey there,” Steve says quietly, crouches down so he’s not towering that far above the kitten and stretches out his hand, palm up. “You’re a little young to be out here on your own, aren’t you?”

The kitten looks up at him, and Steve’s met with a pair of startlingly turquoise eyes. It inches towards him, a little skittishly. Steve doesn’t move a muscle until its little nose tickles the side of his palm. He moves slowly, so as not to startle it—him—carefully scoops the kitten up into his palms and cuddles it close to his chest. It shivers a little in his grip.

“Let’s get you home.”

*

“Why is there a cat on our kitchen table, Steve?” Tony asks later.

It’s close to noon, so naturally Tony is only just waking up, bleary-eyed from staying up too late. Steve frowns as Tony makes a beeline for the coffeepot.

“When did you go to sleep?” he asks. 

Tony waggles a finger at him.

“Nope. I asked first.”

Steve sighs, rubs the knuckle of his pointer along the kitten’s nose.

“I found him on my run,” Steve says, eying the exhausted slump of Tony’s shoulders. “You weren’t in bed when I got up this morning. At least tell me you fell asleep in your workshop.”

Tony turns to him, leans his hip against the counter and takes a gulp of his coffee. He closes his eyes briefly, like he’s basking in the warmth of his drink, before setting the cup down and crossing to Steve. The cup settles with a quiet clatter next to the kitten, which eyes it solemnly before turning its gaze to Tony.

“I fell asleep in my workshop,” Tony says in a way that lets Steve know it’s a lie. 

Steve lets the issue drop in favor of watching the way Tony eyes the kitten like it might attack.

“You know I’m bad with pets, right?” Tony asks. He frowns down at the kitten, like it’s personally offended him. “Except for some of my AIs. I mean, not all of them. Are pets, I mean. Like Jarvis, he’s not a pet, he’s like a really sassy, indispensible part of my life—”

“I am gratified you think so, sir,” Jarvis says, and that will never stop being weird to Steve, that Tony’s house can _talk_ , that it has a better rapport with Tony than most of the people in their lives.

“Yeah, just wait until I’m cursing your very existence,” Tony answers. He frowns. “But what I meant was more like Dummy. Or Butterfingers. Dummy is a good pet; he doesn’t need food and doesn’t leave puddles around the mansion. Kittens are not good pets.”

The cat mewls at that, the same tiny noise that first got Steve’s attention. Steve looks up at Tony through his eyelashes.

“Don’t give me that look, Steve,” Tony warns, but he picks up his mug and taps a single finger to the kitten’s nose. “I don’t want to see it scratching the furniture.”

“He’ll be the perfect pet,” Steve assures him, is rewarded by a quick kiss on the lips before Tony disappears into the basement again. “Won’t you?” he asks the kitten. 

The cat meows again, bats at Steve’s fingers with its tiny front paws.

Tony and the kitten do not get along. It might have something to do with the fact that Loki—Tony named him after he’d caught it chewing on Dummy’s wiring—acts like a menace whenever Tony is around. Loki likes Steve, he’s noticed; he curls up on Steve’s lap and purrs contentedly, but the second Tony walks into the room, Loki jumps up and starts attacking his ridiculously expensive socks.

Steve also thinks that Tony may be a little bit jealous of Loki, which is endearingly ridiculous, but sounds like something Tony would stress over. 

“That cat,” Tony says one evening, squinting up at Loki, “is a menace to society.”

Loki is perched at the top of one of the bookshelves, staring down at them in that way he has, hardly needing to blink.

“He’s an indoor cat,” Steve says from the couch. He watches the way Tony pouts out of the corner of his eyes. “He can’t menace society if the only people he interacts with are you and me.”

“Hey, I _am_ society, Steve,” Tony responds, finally moving away from the bookcase to curl up next to Steve. “In case you didn’t know. _People_ thinks so. So does _GQ_ and _Forbes_. I am a very successful entrepreneur, in case you didn’t notice.”

Steve smiles at that, pulls Tony closer to himself and buries his hand in his hair. Steve swears Tony purrs.

“Right,” he says. “A genius billionaire playboy philanthropist, right?”

“Not so playboy anymore,” is the answer, and it makes Steve smile like a goof.

Loki takes that moment to leap off the top of the shelves and lands right on Tony’s shoulder. Steve winces, sees Loki’s sharp claws dig deep into the fabric of the button down. Tony leaps up like he’s been electrocuted and makes an undignified squawking noise. Steve laughs.

“Why are you laughing, Steve? Your kitten just tried to kill me! He is the God of Chaos, I swear to fucking God when I get him off my back he will be turned into _catnip_ ; don’t just sit there Steve, do something, stop laughing at least, for fuck’s sake—”

*

So, Loki and Tony don’t really get along, but Steve has hope that they’ll grow on each other. Technically, Loki doesn’t get along with anyone other than Steve, because when Rhodey comes to visit he hides under the couch and doesn’t come out until he’s gone. The same happens when Natasha and Pepper visit them, although he does emerge from his sofa-cave when Clint drops by. That ends in disaster though, because it turns out Clint is allergic to cats, and he breaks out in hives when Loki decides to make a sleeping spot out of his head.

Steve thinks Loki’s dealing with abandonment issues. Tony thinks Steve’s crazy.

After a month, Steve comes home from a trip to the art museum and sees a large, orange-colored kitten sitting by the front door, its tail twitching like it’s expecting someone. For a bizarre moment Steve thinks he’s entered someone else’s house (who else would have a driveway that resembles its own private highway, though), before Loki slinks up to Steve and rubs himself along Steve’s ankles. 

“Hey,” Steve says, picking Loki up and rubbing his thumb along Loki’s forehead. “I see you’ve acquired a friend.”

Loki’s grown a lot since Steve found him, and Steve suspects that Tony’s been over-feeding him in an attempt to get into his good graces. It hasn’t really helped much, but at least Tony’s trying. The other kitten rushes to them, sinks his claws into Steve’s pantleg in a way that reminds Steve inexplicably of a puppy. He crouches down and runs his free hand along the cat’s spine. It stretches happily and sits, blinking up at him.

When Steve calls Tony, he sounds hurried and defensive, a standard mood he gets when dealing with the board of directors at Stark Industries. He wants to apologize for interrupting Tony’s day—he may have caught Tony between meetings, but Tony’s been known to answer his phone in the middle of very important presentations and while on the other line with generals—but he’s learned from experience that Tony appreciates any distraction from work on his busy days.

“Oh, that’s Thor,” Tony says when Steve asks about the cat. “I thought Loki needed a friend. To, you know. Acclimatize him to the outside world.”

“Thor,” Steve repeats, staring at the kitten, currently sleeping like a rock on the coffee table. 

“Yeah, I thought it fit pretty nice.” Steve can hear the smirk in his voice. “Do you want to go out for dinner? I’ll be back in New York by seven.”

“Where did you go?”

“Not far,” Tony answers, which could mean the Quebec branch or a meet-and-greet in Hong Kong, for all Steve knows.

Loki sneaks up on Thor while he’s sleeping and climbs up the other cat’s back. Thor doesn’t even shift.

“Dinner would be great.”

*

Thor is the most agreeable cat Steve has ever known. He chases anything that moves with endless enthusiasm, bounding around like he doesn’t quite understand the strength of his own limbs. His favorite thing to do, as far as Steve can tell, is pester Loki until the other cat bats at him viciously and slinks after Thor, presumably to go on eventful kitten-adventures.

Steve assumes they have kitten-adventures anyway, because they disappear for hours on end and turn up on the living room stairs, fast asleep. Tony likes to make up stories that sound like storybook fantasies, teases him sometimes with Norse mythology. After all, they are great Norse gods, according to Tony, and everything they do should be told through song.

The thing about Tony is that sometimes Steve isn’t sure even _Tony_ knows when he’s being sincere or sarcastic.

*

Steve is looking for Tony one night when he realizes he hasn’t seen any of them all day. For Tony, that’s not so strange, but Loki and Thor’s bowls of food are sitting in the kitchen still untouched, and it worries him. He goes searching for them, which takes the better part of an hour (one day Steve will tell Tony that he doesn’t care how much money the other has, no one needs that many bedrooms). They’re nowhere to be found. 

“Tony,” Steve calls down the basement stairs. “Tony, have you seen Thor or Loki? I haven’t—”

He stops mid-sentence, watching the scene before him with fond bemusement. Tony is completely passed out on the tiny cot he’s fashioned for himself down here, one arm thrown casually over his eyes. Loki and Thor are a cuddled bundle resting high on Tony’s chest, Thor batting at the cat-toy Dummy is waving just out of reach. Steve smiles, a sudden flood of warmth spreading through his body. 

He crosses over to the cot as silently as he can; Tony’s other robots shudder to life, but Steve gives them a quick pat to keep them quiet. He sits close to Tony’s head on the cot, traces the line of Tony’s cheekbone with the back of his hand. Tony takes a deep breath. His arm slides down to rest heavily on Loki’s back, and he opens his eyes. 

When he smiles, it’s like the first time; he still manages to leave Steve breathless.

“What time is it?” he mutters. 

“Don’t know,” Steve says, runs his fingers through Tony’s hair because it’s the quickest way to distract him.

“Mmm,” Tony says, sliding his eyes shut again. “Dummy, quit fraternizing with the enemy.”

Dummy makes a sad whirring noise and lets the cat-toy go slack. Steve reaches over and pats the machine.

“Since when are cats the enemy?” Steve asks, directs the question more to Dummy than Tony. 

“Since they started using me as a bed. Hey,” Tony’s hand closes around Steve’s wrist, tugs insistently until Steve turns to face him again. “Do that thing you were just doing.”

“Talking?”

“Ha ha,” Tony says, and Steve obediently resumes scratching his fingers along Tony’s scalp. “I missed you today.”

“I missed you too,” Steve says, plants a chaste kiss on Tony’s temple. The corner of his mouth turns up, just a little private smile that Steve likes to think no one’s seen but him.

“Dummy, get rid of the enemies, yeah?”

Dummy buzzes a little, then with a sharp movement throws the cat-toy across the workshop. Thor bounds after it in a flash, the force of his leap jostling Loki and dropping him to the ground. Loki doesn’t make a sound; he shakes his head once and runs after Thor. Steve imagines a tiny little cat-scowl in Loki’s face and laughs a little.

“See?” Tony says, pulling Steve until he’s draped over Tony’s body. “That’s why Dummy is a great pet.”

“He is,” Steve agrees, leans down and kisses Tony softly.

Dummy makes a pleased whirring noise and rolls away. After a second, there’s a loud crashing noise on the other end of the room. Steve and Tony both laugh.

“Thor and Loki or Dummy?” Tony asks.

Steve considers that for a moment.

“Definitely Dummy.”

**Author's Note:**

> The Avengers and all its related people, places, things, and ideas are the property of Marvel comics and tons of other fabulously talented people who are Most Decidedly Not Me. No money is being made off of this fan-work and no copyright infringement is intended.


End file.
